Under many circumstances it would be desirable to have a shotgun that could rapidly fire rounds of ammunition and be rapidly loaded with ammunition between rounds. For example, in police work and military applications, it is often necessary for the user's survival to be able to rapidly load a shotgun between rounds. In some sporting events, like skeet shooting, it would also be desirable to be able to rapidly reload and fire a shotgun. Although rapid firing and reloading capabilities have been achieved with some small firearms, such as assault rifles and pistols, they have not yet been satisfactorily achieved with shotguns
Known semi-automatic shotguns, such as pump-action shotguns, typically have a fixed, tubular-shaped magazine mounted below the barrel, wherein the shells or cartridges are loaded individually into the magazine. A fixed magazine typically holds about five shells. After all of the shells are fired, the next round of shells are loaded one at a time into the fixed magazine. This is a time consuming process, and frequently too time consuming to make shotguns a practical alternative to other small firearms in certain police work and military applications.
It is an object of the present invention, therefore, to overcome the problems and disadvantages in rapidly loading rounds of ammunition into a shotgun.